Anthropology Artifacts Collection | Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections

Collection Overview

Title: Anthropology Artifacts Collection

ID: WC-Anth/Main

Extent: 0.0

Scope and Contents of the Materials

The anthropology artifacts collection contains a wide range of items that document the material culture from around the world and was received as gifts. The artifact descriptions were created from existing information created near the time of acquisition as well as research conducted by students.

Box and Folder Listing

Item 136: FE-13-19 -- [artifact name unknown]

Lip plates in East Africa are worn both east and west of the Upper Nile river area, by people in the region of the Lower Omo River in Southwest Ethiopia, and also into Western Sudan and Northern Uganda.In this area of Africa, lip plates are predominantly a female form of ornamentation, although amongst the people of the Lower Omo lip plugs are common among both men and women. Plates may also be made of leather or clay and can reach a diameter of 12 to 15 cm and weigh almost 300 grams. A loose flap of skin remains when the plate is removed, and amongst the Suri Surma Meken, with the exception of times of mourning, it is necessary to cover this skin with a hand or leaf so that a man or a woman's mother in law does not see it. There is much debate over the significance of lip plate wearing and it is possible that it has different meaning in the different forms that it takes in the different cultural groups that wear them. Amongst the Surma, when a girl reaches puberty the incisions in her lip are made so that the plate may be fitted and several of her teeth are also removed as a part of the initiation. Bodi women in South West Ethiopia begin to wear lip plugs once their first child is born. Two prominent assertions regarding the significance of the lip plate have included a correlation of plate size to amount of bride wealth, or the argument that the custom was instituted in order to deter slave traders from taking the women. However, at least amongst the Mursi of the Suri Surma Meken group in Ethiopia, many of the girls have arranged marriage partners and set bride wealth sums before they begin to wear the lip plate. The second explanation has its origins in the colonial era and raises questions about the biases of those making the assertions at the time, and also regarding the significance of similar lip discs worn by other cultural groups around the world (including the Kayapo of Brazil). The Mursi are some of the most well known for the wearing of lip plates. At the age of 15 or 16, an incision is made in a girl's lower lip by her mother or another woman in the village. Progressively larger plates are inserted, as often as once a day, at the discretion of the girl herself. The typical answer when a Mursi woman is asked why she increases the size of the plate is AIt is our custom.@When considering the implications of the lip plate in these cultures, it is important to acknowledge the debate that has risen recently over tourism in this area. In his article, ALip plates and 'the people who take photographs'@, David Turton expresses many reservations regarding tourist activity, particularly to the Mursi, for the purpose of photographing these large lip plates. Mursi women are paid for posing, but Turton describes the photo taking as perceived as a kind of Apredatory [act] by which they are captured and appropriated@ (7). The wearing of the lip plate is viewed is a Apowerful marker of Mursi identity@ (5) to all of the Mursi people, and at the same time serves as a constant reminder that others see them as uncivilized (5). The practice of wearing a lip plate may soon be eliminated, at least in Mursi society, for Apowerful pressures, both direct and indirect, on Mursi women to give up the practiceYwill undoubtedly prove irresistible@ (5).

Additional Information: African Art, Music & Cultural Resources|The African Studies Program at the|University of Wisconsin Madison.|Electronic Document, |http://africa.wisc.edu/links/cultural.htm, accessed October 3, 2006.Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives.N.d. National Museum of African Art. Smithsonian Institute. Electronic Document, http://www2.unil.ch/gybn/Arts_Peuples/Ex Africa/Initiation/cadrinit.htm.

Geysbeek, Tim. 15 September, 2006 SIM International Archives, Personal Correspondence.

References Cited: Allen, John L. and Audrey C. Shalinsky. 2004. Student Atlas of Anthropology. Guilford, CT: McGraw Hill.

Butt, Audrey. N.d. East Central Africa Part IV: The Nilotes of the Anglo Egyptian Sudan and Uganda. Ethnographic Survey of Africa. London: International African Institute.

Cerulli, Ernesta. 1956. North Eastern Africa Part III: Peoples of South West Ethiopia and its Borderland. Ethnographic Survey of Africa. London: International African Institute.

Driberg, J.H. 1939. A Note on the Classification of Half Hamites in East Africa. Man 39: 20 21. Gordon, Raymond G., Jr., ed. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Electronic document, http://www.ethnologue.com/, accessed September 11, 2006.

Huntingford, G.W.B. 1961. Distribution of Certain Culture Elements in East Africa. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 91(2): 251 295

Simpson, John, ed. Oxford English Dictionary Online edition. Oxford University Press, Electronic document. http://www.oed.com, accessed October 1st, 2006.

Turton, David. 2004. Lip plates and the People Who Take Photographs: Uneasy Encounters Between Mursi and Tourists in Southern Ethiopia. Anthropology Today 20(3):3 8.

Wheaton College Museum Card File. n.d. File Available in Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

Culture: Central Nilo Hamitic peoples including the Suri Surma Meken peoples, the Buma Marle of the Lower Omo River region, the Bodi of the West Sidama or Ometo groups and the Acholi. Due to the significant size of these plates, they may very likely be from the Mursi or the Ubangi Chari Colony, now the Central African Republic.

Culture Area: East Africa, Horn of Africa

Date Acquired: [Unknown]

Dimensions: 3.5cm thick x 24 cm in diameter

Donor: [Unknown]

General Area of the World: Ethiopia, Sudan, Northern Uganda, Kenya, Central African Republic

Material: Medium hardness, dark colored wood

Outline of Cultural Materials Code: 300 Adornment, 301 Ornament, 304 Body Alterations322 Woodworking

Outline of World Cultures Code: [undetermined]

Use and Background: Lip plates in East Africa are worn both east and west of the Upper Nile river area, by people in the region of the Lower Omo River in Southwest Ethiopia, and also into Western Sudan and Northern Uganda.In this area of Africa, lip plates are predominantly a female form of ornamentation, although amongst the people of the Lower Omo lip plugs are common among both men and women. Plates may also be made of leather or clay and can reach a diameter of 12 to 15 cm and weigh almost 300 grams. A loose flap of skin remains when the plate is removed, and amongst the Suri Surma Meken, with the exception of times of mourning, it is necessary to cover this skin with a hand or leaf so that a man or a woman's mother in law does not see it. There is much debate over the significance of lip plate wearing and it is possible that it has different meaning in the different forms that it takes in the different cultural groups that wear them. Amongst the Surma, when a girl reaches puberty the incisions in her lip are made so that the plate may be fitted and several of her teeth are also removed as a part of the initiation. Bodi women in South West Ethiopia begin to wear lip plugs once their first child is born. Two prominent assertions regarding the significance of the lip plate have included a correlation of plate size to amount of bride wealth, or the argument that the custom was instituted in order to deter slave traders from taking the women. However, at least amongst the Mursi of the Suri Surma Meken group in Ethiopia, many of the girls have arranged marriage partners and set bride wealth sums before they begin to wear the lip plate. The second explanation has its origins in the colonial era and raises questions about the biases of those making the assertions at the time, and also regarding the significance of similar lip discs worn by other cultural groups around the world (including the Kayapo of Brazil). The Mursi are some of the most well known for the wearing of lip plates. At the age of 15 or 16, an incision is made in a girl's lower lip by her mother or another woman in the village. Progressively larger plates are inserted, as often as once a day, at the discretion of the girl herself. The typical answer when a Mursi woman is asked why she increases the size of the plate is "It is our custom." When considering the implications of the lip plate in these cultures, it is important to acknowledge the debate that has risen recently over tourism in this area. In his article, "Lip plates and 'the people who take photographs'", David Turton expresses many reservations regarding tourist activity, particularly to the Mursi, for the purpose of photographing these large lip plates. Mursi women are paid for posing, but Turton describes the photo taking as perceived as a kind of "predatory [act] by which they are captured and appropriated" (7). The wearing of the lip plate is viewed is a "powerful marker of Mursi identity" (5) to all of the Mursi people, and at the same time serves as a constant reminder that others see them as uncivilized (5). The practice of wearing a lip plate may soon be eliminated, at least in Mursi society, for "powerful pressures, both direct and indirect, on Mursi women to give up the practice...will undoubtedly prove irresistible" (5).